today in london to discuss libya. several officials in attendance briefed reporterrings. we're hear first from william hague. they are followed by secretary of state clinton. this is 45 minutes. >> ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. this has been a very important day for the future of libya and we have seen two key

developments today. first, foreign ministers and leaders from over 40 countries and organizations including the united nations, the arab league, the organization of the islamic conference, the european union and nato met here at the london conference and libya. i'll list the key conclusions in a moment, but we certainly widened and deepened the coalition with a new pledge of support in nato operations by sweden and countries offering u.n. resolutions on libya and agreement to a new contact group, an international contact group, and second, the interim national counsel launched again here in london their vision for a future of libya that is free, democratic, and unified, and we've said throughout that we want the libyan people to be in the lead in determining their future and today one of the significant milestone in that process. it comes at a time when the forces of the gadhafi regime

continue to shell civilians and a brutal matter underlying why our efforts to protect libyan citizens must and will continue. i have here a copy of a letter we received today from a member of a local counsel thanking britain and our allies for our actions to relieve the people through targeted strikes and the enforcement of the no-fly zone, and for coming to the aid of the libyan people as he puts it in their most needy of hours. he says the local counsel can testify for the effectiveness and the accuracy of those strikes and confirm that there have been not a single case of civilian injury or death in and around the cities as a result of coalition activity. he salutes the men and women who put their lives on the lines to save libyans saying they are

forever grateful. the foreign prim minister of qatar is one of the key allies in implementing resolution 1973. his country is showing comment in the skies above libya and conferences like these and are thrilled they are hosting the first meeting of the first contact group on libya that we agreed to form today. before it turn it over to him, i want to draw your attention to the key conclusions of today's meetings that are set out in greater lengths in documents that will be supplied for you. par tis participants today reaffirms the full and swift implementation of the u.n. security resolutions and our strong commitment to the sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity, and national unity of libya. we agreed to consider pursuing in the u.n. and regal organizations additional sanctions of entities associated

with the regime, and participants here today are implementing these measures as a clear message to gadhafi. we have a broad mandate to implement the actions. so far the action we have taken has been successful in protecting countless civilians and wiping out the air capability. they paid try butte to the military personnel from all contributors in the coalition. the current and potential contributors to military operations had a separate meeting as part of the conference. we met to underlie our commitment to the success of military action to implement the provisions of the resolution, reaffirmed our support for this course of action, welcomed nato's contribution in agreeing to take on command and control of all military operations to

enforce the embargo, no-fly zone, and other actions need to protect civilians. participants here today reaffirmed that very clear conditions must be met under the security counsel resolution including the immediate seize fire, halt to attacks on civilians, and humanitarian access to those in need. we want those conditions fulfilled and the libyan regime will be judged on actions and not by words. it's not for the participants here today to choose the government of libya, only the libyan people can do that, but we agree that gadhafi and his regime lost legitimacy and will be held accountable for their actions. we recognize the civilians, the counsel, tribal leaders and others to come together to begin a conclusive and political process, and we call on the international community to support that process, working

closely with the u.n. secretary general special representative, mr. al. we have agreed priorities for a humanitarian response. we notably offer qatar to facilitate the sale of oil and consistent with international law and particularly provisions of the security counsel resolutions and other resolutions to support the people of libya that using the proceeds to help meet the humanitarian needs. to take the work forward, participants agreed to establish the contact group that meets to provide leadership and overall political direction to the international efforts in close coordination with the u.n., the african union, the arab league, the islamic conference, and the european union to support libya to provide a forum on the

response to libya and provide a focal point in the international community. qatar will convene the first meeting of the group and then rotate in the region and beyond it. the north atlantic counsel meeting along with five partners provides the directions to nato operations. the participants welcome the u.n. secretary regime's offer to lead the coordination of humanitarian assistance and planning for longer term stablization support. turkey and other key regional player as agencies offered to support this work and take it forward with the contact group. this conference has shown we are united in our aims, united in seeking a libya that does not pose a threat to its own citizens or to the region or more widely, and in working with the people of libya as they choose their own way forward to a peaceful and stable future. thank you very much, and i now

invite the prime minister and foreign minister of qatar to speak. >> thank you very much, william. first of all, i would like to say that we thank britain for this conference which has become a very important conference after the first conference in paris because that shows the reliability of the ally and shows more countries join this coalition. it's a sad moment, but with hope in the hiewch, sad moment of what we are seeing in libya, sad moment that we see that we need to try to intervene in a country which belongs to the arab, but we as arab and the arab league have a mission as a community to participate to try not to let the libyan people by their own facing the gadhafi and his group

which there are as we saw the last few weeks, there are losing all the heavy machines to kill their protesters and their own people. hope that we hope that this will finish as soon as possible, hope that the libyan people will decide how they would like to run their country. we, in qatar, participate in the humanitarian side, and also in the no-fly zone by sending some of our planes to their side, and there are -- they are doing their mission in the moment we are talking now. i think the libyan national counsel is for us to organize it as address now, but later the people of libya will decide what it is. i think this conference was good to evaluate what has been done

in the last few days from the military action and what we can do. what i would like to see is we urge gadhafi and his people to leave and not to cause anymore bloodshed. i think this is the only solution to solve this problem as soon as possible. right now, we don't see any indication of that, but this hope which we offer it now might be on the table after a few days. i'm not warning anybody here, but i'm trying to stop the bloodshed as soon as possible. thank you very much. >> thank you very much. now we have time for a few questions. press secretary will point them out. >> thank you very much, nick robeson, bbc news. do you both fear it may not be possible to protect libyan civilians from the air? did today's conference discuss the possibility of arming the

opposition as they have asked, or do you fear that if you did so, you might be harming some at least who have al-qaeda's empathies? >> we didn't discuss that at the conference today. it was not one of the topics of for discussion. we discussed the things i set out, all of which are designed to protect civilian life in libya, but that was not raised at the conference, and it was not on the agenda for this decision. you are right the subject has been raised, of course, by the interim transitional national counsel, but it's not part of any agreement today. the united kingdom takes into account the u.n. security counsel resolutions on this. those resolutions in our view applied to the whole of libya, although it's consistent with u.n. security counsel resolution 1973 to give people aide in

order to defend themselves in particular circumstances, but we vice president discussed that -- haven't discussed that, so there's no new decisions to communicate to you about that. >> i would like to add to what sir william said that we did not discuss that, but it's our opinion that we have to evaluate the airside after awhile to see if it's effective to protect the people of libya or nod, and at that time, we have at the international community have to see what sort of measure. we are not talking here about invading libya or not inviting any military ground to be, but we have to evaluate the situation because we cannot let the people suffer for so long. you know, we have to find a way to stop this bloodshed, but we still in the first days of what's happening, and we need to

evaluate it maybe at some time later. >> okay. microphone's on its way. >> "daily telegraph". are you at all concerned israel may take advantage of this resolution taking -- revolution taking place in libya whether they be muslim brotherhood or more extreme in terms of al-qaeda? >> well, i think the initial answer to that is the document that was published by the interim transitional council. the idea of a democratic libya is a document that i was pleased to see and encouraged them to release because it includes so many of the things that we would like to see, so many of the commitments that we would like

to see about the future of libya, the summation of parties, peaceful protests, it is the right documents and right set of commitments for the future of libya. also talking about using science and technology for the betterment of society in the free private sector and effective civil society. these are strong commitments and absolutely the right commitments from the opposition forces in libya, and i think they often fear in putting those forward as their plan discussing with some representatives this morning and talking to other representatives by telephone over the last few weeks i'm sure is sincere, but we must never be come place sent about the way events like this could turn out. one of the reasons it's

necessary for the european union and the view of the prime minister, david cameron, and i is to make a bold and historic offer to the region is to try to act as a magnet for this kind of positive change given there is a danger that if things go wrong in a region on a sustained basis, there could be new opportunities for terrorism or extreme itchism, so -- extremism, so we must not be complacent about it, but what we're doing to protect civilians , to encourage a process in which libyans can choose their own future government is the right way to combat those dangers of terrorism and extremism. prime minister? >> i'd like to add a little bit about extremism. you know, this has happened part of it because of how we are

dealing with the people in the middle east, and this fear part of it put forth by the leaders in the middle east because they want to stay in power. i think we should not look if there's a right or left people, or a muslim brotherhood. look at them how they behave. if they go by the international law or do something better. if they want a democracy, let that decide who come and take power. this reason many times if we want to go further deep why this happened, it's because of our mistakes, so we have also not to fear, but to try to treat our mistakes and by leaving everybody to decide what they want in their country. >> thank you, elise from cnn.

minister hague, it was just said that you need to increase your political pressure on moammar gadhafi to step down, and you're looking for countries for him to take refuge. what efforts are you doing to increase the prelim pressure for him to step down, and for the prime minister, the united states in particular and other nations of nato have asked for arab leadership and support for this effort which really was the pretest for going to the u.n. security counsel resolution. why do you think more arab nations have not publicly joined qatar and the united arab emrites in joining the coalition, and do you expect more countries to join in the coming days? thank you. >> would you like to take that first? >> yes. one about the arab, when we went

to the arab leagues by enormous measure except one country, we decided to go to the security council and ask for no-fly zone. it was a big argument, but we told them what's the alternative? to leave the people killed, slaughtered, or we have to go to the united nations. i agree with you the arab involvement is not so big or not so concrete, but at least there is some arab countries participating physically and some arab countries participating in the conference here in london. i hope it will increase, and i hope the arab league, arabs in the future mechanism to do these things to avoid these things happen and ask for international help because this is a problem. unfortunately, we could not do it by ourselves, but to show our solidarity in qatar at least in

our belief we join the international community. >> on the question of gadhafi stepping down, the meeting and unity of such a wide variety of nations and the arab world taking about the role and unity, the united nations and the strong emphasis on what i was saying earlier that we all agree that gadhafi and his regime have completely lost legitimacy and will be held accountable for his actions, that is extremely strong, intensity strong international pressure for him to go. there is no future for libya with gadhafi in charge of libya or trying to hang on to power there. that is clear to all these nations and organizations, and

we've made that emphatically clear today. >> [inaudible] >> well, we support the international criminal court. we're not engaged in the united kingdom in looking for somewhere for him to go. that doesn't exclude others from doing so. >> first question hamad bin jassim, the national counsel and on the legitimate representative of libyan people and we saw today on the list of attendees countries, so is qatar have

diplomatic efforts to get more contributions among other countries in this operation, and second question for mr. hague. now said there was a separate meeting between the current and potential of the operations, who is potential contributors in this operation? thank you. >> go ahead. >> well, about the participation of the arabs, as i mentioned there's some arabs participating in the meeting in london here, and i believe we are not trying to push the others to be part of it, but we have some beliefs, and our beliefs let us participate from day one and let us go to the ggc conference and ask for no-fly zone, and we asked for the meeting and the arab league, and the arab league supported the idea of no-fly zone. it's a process, and to be legal,

we went not security council, and all this gathering in london or before was about that. the people will not allow the international community will not allow gadhafi kill his people, will not allow what happened in libya, and for us when we saw what we saw the first few days, we thought that this is a shame to stay aside and to say, well, it's not our business. it is arab business. unfortunately, i think the participating and participation of the arabs should be more side yows, but i'm glad there's arab countries in unity, the international take this serious, and i think this will be example how we can cooperate between us and the nato, between us and united nations. i think this is the first coalition which its demanded by the arabs and by the libyans. it's not like any other solution

happened before. >> on the question of potential contributors. well, one of those at the meeting was sweden that i mentioned earlier who had not contributed before, but announced today, and sweden is not a nato country as you know, but they announced their position with eight fighter aircraft and other logistical support. there are other countries currently discussing with us, making a contribution to the military operations, but i think they have to make their own announcements. it's not fair to make those announcements or anticipate them, but they will announce them in due course. >> [inaudible] >> the answer is the same. >> foreign secretary, you will keep calling on gadhafi, but you've bombed him for 10 days and shows no sign of budging. what is your next move? >> we haven't been bombing him,

but the force of threatening the civilians of libya, and so many different places, and i think it's important to recognize what we have achieved in that time because had we not passed the u.n. resolution when we did, and then act on it so promptly, well, then is seems likely that the city would have been stormed and if not for our intervention others would have fallen, and in each case with potentially great loss of life and catastrophic humanitarian consequences, so, yes, we're engaged in this now for 10 days, but i think in those 10 days, we have achieved a great deal, and we have saved many lives. now, it does seem from all of today's activity in libya that december piet a -- despite proclay mages of a cease

fire yesterday, the gadhafi regime is still embarking on prosecuting a war against the people of its own country, and that means as you can tell from the statements i made on behalf of the whole conference today that since the conditions of a cease fire and the end of arms are not fulfilled, then our operations to protect the civilians in these locations in libya will continue. it's very important to have that unified commitment for them continuing is very, very clear in our statements today, and so i think it is a gadhafi regime that has to wonder and worry where that leads the international community and it's absolutely robust, clear, absolutely united that we will continue on this course of action which has already saved so many lives, and it looks like will be necessary to save even more, and that is worthwhile doing, and it's the right thing

to do, and it's very strongly endorsed at this conference today. we're going to go now because secretary clinton will be with you shortly, so we'll give you a short break before she arrives. thank you very much indeed. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> all set? i apologize for my voice. good afternoon, and i want to begin by expressing certainly our gratitude to the prime minister and the foreign secretary and the entire government for hosting this important conference. i just concluded a very full day of business covering an array of issues with a broad arrange of

counterparts. i began the day with meeting with representatives of the libyan transitional national council to hear their per perspective on the situation in libya and talked about the efforts to protect sievians and meet needs and about the ongoing coalition military action in support of resolution 1973. we also discussed the need for a political solution and transition in libya. i reiterated the support of the united states on behalf of president obama for the legitimate aspirations of the libyan people and our commitment to helping them achieve those aspirations. i also had the opportunity to meet with both prime minister cameron and with foreign minister hague and exprezzed the united states gratitude for the leadership that the united

kingdom has shown in building an effective international response to the crisis in libya. we consulted on the way forward, the military, political, and humanitarian dimensions, and we also discussed events and broader trends across the middle east and north africa and our joint efforts in afghanistan and pakistan. i had the opportunity, also to consult with a number of other counterparts about libya. because today's conference is taking place at a moment of transition as nato takes over as leader of the coalition mission, a mission in which the united states will continue to play an active supporting role. some of our coalition partners announced additional support and contributions today which we welcomed. in addition to our joint military efforts, we discussed the need for progress in libya along the three nonmilitary tracks. first, delivering humanitarian assistance, second, pressuring

and isolating the gad gat re-- gadhafi regime through robust sanctions and other measures en, and third, supporting libyans to achieve the political changes that they are seeking. we also agreed on a structure for decision making going forward on both the military and political tracks. on the military side, we agreed that the north atlantic council with coalition partners fully at the table will be the sole provider of executive direction for nato operations. similar to the i staff approach for afghanistan. on the political side, we agreed to establish a contact group to offer a systematic coordination mechanism and broad political guidance on the full range of efforts under resolutions 1970 and 1973, and as i'm sure you just heard from the prime minister of qatar, qatar agreed to host the first meeting of the

contact group along with the u.k.. in a series of side meetings, i also had the chance to discuss a number of issues including syria. i expressed our strong condemnation of the syrian's government of brutal attacks on protesters and killing of civilians in the hands of security forces. ..

so it was a full day for all loss. we came to london to speak with one voice in support of a transition that leads to a brighter future for the libyan people. i'm very pleased with the progress that we've made both today and in the days preceding that and grateful for everyone who participated in the conference and the broad effort in libya. i think we are making a lot of progress together and we could not do it unless we were representing the international community as we are curious with fat, i would be happy to take your questions. >> our first question is from andy guinn of reuters. >> madam secretary, in your meeting today i was wondering were you able to make any concrete offers of assistance either turning over the 33 billion in the funds frozen in the united states were discussing possible arms transfers and we told the senate today that intelligence shows

flickers of al qaeda in the libyan opposition. how great a concern is that and is that part of over any potential arms transfers to the council? >> andy, first of all we haven't made any decision about arming the rebels or providing any arms transfers. so there has not been any need to discuss that at this point. we did discuss nonlethal assistance, we discussed ways of trying to enable the transition national council to meet a lot of their financial needs and how we could do that through the international community given the challenges that sanctions post but recognizing the obviously are going to need funds to keep themselves going. we discuss a broad range of matters, and certainly their presentation which some of you

may have seen earlier today as to what kind of civil society and political structure they are trying to build in libya or exactly in line with what the of consistently said where of their goals. the commitment to democracy and a very robust engagement with people from across the spectrum of libyans is i think appropriate. we do not have any specific information about specific individuals from any organization who are part of this, but of course we are still getting to know those who are leading the trend to see the transitional national council and there will be a process that continues. >> the next question is from the times of london.

>> the resolution of 1973 makes it legal to supply arms to the libyan rebels or seven room for the maneuver should it get to that and second, starting when the rebels were talking today none of their names are apart from and they clearly have access, the of power and access to a lot of funds through money. the use think they should be more transformed determine who they are from what kind of groupings' they come from and how they use the money? >> as for the first question is our interpretation that 1973 amended or overrode the absolute prohibition of the arms to anyone in libya so that there

could be legitimate transfer of arms if the country were to choose to do that. as i said, we have not made that decision at this time. second, i do think the greater transparency will of course be expected and will be delivered, but i think you have to put this into context. this is a very fast evil thing but by no means settled structure that they are trying to build. they also claim to have a number of people who are willing to work with them from central and western libya who for security reasons cannot be named. so i do think that this is a work in progress and with respect to in the's question, we don't know as much as we would like to know and as much as we expect we will know.

we are picking up information. a lot of contact is going on, not only by our government but many governments that are part of the coalition. so we are building an understanding, but at this time, obviously, it is as lacy a work in progress. >> jay of the "wall street journal." >> thank you. another question regarding syria. over the weekend you gave an interview where you said how many members of congress view the president as a reformer. is that your position? because there have been well documented cases of support for terrorist groups, allegations that pursue atomic weapons and some in congress said syria poses a greater threat to the united states national security than libya does. is it the obama administration position that it can work with president us ought to instigate or initiate the reforms people are calling for?

thank you. >> first, as you rightly pointed out i referenced opinions of others that wasn't either speaking for myself or for the administration. we deplore the crackdown that is occurring in syria and we call on syria as we have throughout the last month to respect the rights of its citizens to allow people to protest peacefully, to work towards political and economic reform that would lead to the benefit of the syrian people. so there is no difference in how we view this and how we have viewed the other sequence of action we've seen in north africa and in the middle east and we hope that there is an opportunity for reform. we hope there's an opportunity for reform and all these countries, we need to seek peaceful transitions. we want to see democracies and willingness of the people.

so we are like the syrian people waiting and watching to see that what comes from the syrian government, they dismiss the cabinet today which resigned on mass and as we have said so many times before we support the timely implementation of reform that meets the demand that syrians are presenting to their government such as immediately e. eliminating syria's state of emergency law which as been in effect for a long time. it is at the syrian government and it is of to the leadership starting with president busheir assad to prove that it can be responsive to the needs of its own people. as we are also going to continue to urge that the promise of reform which has been made over and over again and he reported

on just a few months ago on a reformer, i'm going to reform and talk to members of congress and others about that that we hear from the highest levels of leadership and syria would be turned into reality that we are waiting and watching for. >> i wonder how you view this issue when shannon libya at the moment. there seems to be a bit of almost ping-pong going on the rebels seem to be withdrawing from some areas today. how do you see the situation evil thing in libya and exhausting and if you are talking to khaddafi, what are his options? he can obviously try and stay or he can face the icc but is there another option he could travel to the country? >> i think first what we are

seeing in libya is a strengthening of the opposition, a consistent and very persistent effort by the opposition to try to hold ground which they have had and regain ground which they have lost. unfortunately we are also seeing with lamarca coffee the continuing pressure on the rebels and his unwillingness to move for us we report today continuing military action by the forces, so this is a volatile dynamic situation that is unfolding. we accomplished a lot in a very short period of time. we clearly believe as president obama said last night with that we have prevented a massacre and

that we were able to stop the military advance the was moving rapidly from west to east and the we send a clear message through the international community willingness to enforce a no-fly zone and protect civilians that that kind of ruthless behavior by a leader toward his own people wouldn't be tolerated. this has happened so quickly we are facing questions like the ones you ask, but i'm not sure that we know exactly when we will get to any change in attitude by those around him. as you know there's a lot of reaching out that is occurring, a lot of conversation that is going on and the arab league said it's also obvious to everyone that khaddafi has lost the legitimacy to the so we believe he must go. we are working with the

international community to try to achieve that outcome. he will have to make a decision and the decision so far as we are aware hasn't been made. you probably know that the secretary-general's special envoy will be going to tripoli, once again to urge khaddafi to implement a real cease-fire that is not going to be immediately reached by his own forces to withdraw from those areas that he's taken by force, and to look for a political resolution which could include his leaving the country. so, all of this is simply and many of the nations that were here in london today working information to share the impressions each have with the

conversations coming from tripoli and from those close to cut off the about what war is or isn't being considered so i expect to see things continue to move in a positive direction but i can't by any means give you any sort of time line. that is a sensible at this point if we don't have enough information to do that. >> thank you very much. >> [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

top officials from the u.s. nuclear regulatory commission told senators today that the damaged nuclear power plant in japan, quote come continues to further stabilize, and that there have been no radiation readings in the u.s. the might be of concern. these remarks came before the meeting of the senate energy and natural resources committee. other speakers included officials from the energy department, the nuclear energy institute and the union of concerned scientists. this is an hour and 45 minutes.

>> thank you for being here. this is a briefing. this is not a hearing has such. the reason we try to it as a briefing is so that people wouldn't have to file written testimony 72 hours ahead of time and all of that and things are changing very quickly with regard to the evolving situation that the nuclear power plant. will the committee doesn't have direct oversight on the safety of u.s. nuclear plants we do have to consider how events such as those affect the ability of the nation's nuclear fleet of 104 reactors to supply electricity, this of course the 104 reactors currently account for 20% of the electricity that we use and with the future of nuclear energy will be as part of the nation's energy mix.

the events at fukushima are watching unfold on the other side of the world. our knowledge is in complete as we look forward to these experts and forming the committee on what they see occurring at the plant, have impact on the nation's existing fleet of reactors and answer questions that the committee members might have. before we introduce our first panel, we've got four witnesses, to on the first panel, and then to on the second panel. before i introduce the first panel that mccaul one cementer rakowski for her comments. >> thank you mr. chairman and to those who will be presenting. i do appreciate the timeliness of this hearing this morning with the oversight this morning as we try to better understand what is unfolding at the power

plant in japan. as you pointed out mr. chairman, it's too early for us to say that the situation is under control. i think it is important to recognize though that the workers who are there on a daily basis, the progress that they are being made hopefully is positive steps being achieved but it's important to recognize and to praise the courageous efforts of the workers on the ground trying to stabilize the situation. they've been going around the clock for two years now. probably no doubt exhausted at the same time they are dealing with personal stress issues brought about bye loss of loved ones, loss of their homes. it's perhaps easy for us in this country to be sitting back looking at the situation, picking at the issue but we do need to keep in mind the

selfless act that these individuals are embarking on every day as the work to prevent further damage and protect their for their countrymen. mr. chairman, i do hope that this is an opportunity for us as a committee as well as other committees here in the congress to really take away some lessons learned, so i will be listening with great interest this morning and as we continue in the weeks ahead to understand more of what has happened with the disaster in japan. with that i look forward to the testimony. >> thank you very much. our first panel was dr. peter lyons who of course is the acting assistant secretary, we hope soon to be the secretary of nuclear energy in the department of energy and mr. bill borchardt, who's the executive director for operations of the nuclear regulatory commission. so, why don't we go in that

order unless you have a reason to go in a different order. dr. lyons, why don't you go ahead and give us your perspective and then mr. borchardt and then we will undoubtedly have some questions. >> thank you. chairman bingaman, a ranking member murkowski and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the nuclear accident in japan, the department of energy's response to that situation and relevant research development and deployment programs within my office of nuclear energy. let me briefly recap our current understanding of the still evolving events at the fukushima power plant with its six nuclear reactors albeit with many gaps in knowledge. when the earthquake on march 11th struck, the three operating reactors shut down in accordance with operating procedures. backup diesel generators started but were damaged by the tsunami. the operating units used battery

power to continue to run the cooling pumps until the batteries were trained or the pumps failed. as a reactor heat from radioactive decay steam was produced. the pressure build up from the steam required venting which released some radioactive material. it also lowered the water level in the three reactor vessels reducing the cooling of the core. it appears that all three reactor cores are damaged to the unknown extent. additionally, as the temperature increased, the reaction took place between the draconian fuel plaiting and the steam or water and pressure vessel producing hydrogen. the hydrogen was attended along with the steam and may have ignited all three reactors. products have been released through the process east. once pumper units were brought in, sea water cooling was used for many days until fresh water

supply were available. water levels of the spent fuel are also of concern which some reports did at least one of them was empty for some time. the sea water being used to cool the spent fuel until fresh water supplies are obtained. current information suggests that the plants are in a slow recovery from the accident. however, long-term tooling of the reactors and pools is essential during this period and has not been adequately restored to date to the best of my knowledge, a massive clean-up operation obviously remains for the future. to assist in the country's response the nuclear incident team operations center at the department of energy was promptly activated and has been continuously staffed by mmsa and personnel since the accident. the focus of all activities led by the operations center has been to understand the progression and offer advice and

assistance to the japanese officials who have the direct responsibility to manage the accident recovery. the department of energy the point about 40 people on more than 17,000 pounds of equipment. in putting the mmsa's management system and several so-called consequence management response teams. the national atmospheric at fisa capability at the livermore library has been transport, potential transport of radioactive materials. the office of nuclear energy as published in nuclear energy response team that is utilizing our national lab to the police to analyze the situation and to suggest approaches. and industry team is providing important support both in japan and here. in addition, secretary chu and white house technical lead advisor john holguin of regional to laboratory directors and other eminent scientists for technical lead vice. beyond the response to the accident, the research development deployment programs

of the office of nuclear energy are highly relevant to future decisions about the potential options for nuclear power in the united states. essex samples, i propose the modular reactor program designs that of receive the officious to extensive use of passive systems while also conducting research and the band at the high-temperature gas reactor designs that offer the features. our light-water reactor system of devotee programs exploring whether the lifetime of our operating reactors and the extent with no compromise and safety. research and fuel cycles are also within the office of nuclear energy and while we await guidance from the commission on america's nuclear future we are conducting research and development into a broad range of options for the nation's fuel cycle with careful attention to safety and environmental protection and nonproliferation. safety of the future systems is key to all of the programs. selected research areas like worker and fuel claddings that

cannot generate hydrogen in an accident and fuels but virtually impossible to melt have the jury is obvious relevance and the modeling and simulation hub based at oak ridge national laboratories would be providing important to keep what is the knipling industry capabilities that can be used to assess and improve the safety of existing and future reactors. i concur with the recent statement made by deputy secretary that we view nuclear energy as a very important component to the overall portfolio we are trying to build for the clean energy future. the programs of the office of a nuclear energy that the option for seat nuclear power remains open to the nation. by way of concluding the brief comments the earthquake and the result brought tremendous devastation on japan. the department of energy and indeed through active

administration we are making every effort to assist the japanese people in their time of need. thank you, and i will try to answer your questions. >> thank you very much. go right ahead. >> members of the committee, good morning. the staff of the nrc is deeply saddened by the tragedy in japan. i and many of my colleagues on this staff have had many years of close professional and personal interaction with our regulatory counterparts in japan and we would like to extend our condolences to them. the nrc is mindful of the primary responsibility is to ensure the adequate protection of the public health and safety of the american people. we've been closely monitoring the activities in japan and reviewing all available information. the review of this information combined with our ongoing inspection and licensing oversight allow us to say with confidence the u.s. plans continue to operate safely.

there's been no reduction in the licensing or oversight function of the nrc as it relates to any of the u.s. licensees. notwithstanding the very high level of support being provided as the result of the events of japan, we continue to maintain our focus on our domestic responsibilities. on friday march 11th an earthquake hit japan resulting in the shutdown of more than ten reactors. from what we know now it appears that the reactors are response to the earthquake with design. the tsunami appears to have caused the loss of normal and emergency alternating current power to six units at the fukushima site. and it is those six units that have received the majority of our attention since that time. it's our assessment at this time units one, two and three have experienced some degree of damage and they are currently

stable and being cooled with fresh water. the units appear to have some primary containment damage. of the releases of radioactivity that are continuing significant concern including significant contamination in the lower levels of the unit and three buildings in the unit's one through four have experienced varying water levels and the sea water from helicopters and a spray systems. the unit spent has now started receiving fresh water and they are trying to change all of the units from fire trucks to the normal pumping in the next few days. tokyo electric power company is restored electric power to the site and to the six reactor controllers and the situation in general continues to further stabilize although there are many hurdles remain.

shortly after 4:00 in the morning on friday march 11th the nrc emergency abrasion centered made the first call to inform the management of the earthquake we went into the monitoring mode at the off-center as the first concern was for a possible tsunami impact on u.s. plants and radioactive materials on the west coast in hawaii, alaska and the u.s. territories in the pacific. on the same day we began reaction with our japanese regulatory counterparts and dispatched the two experts of japan to help at the u.s. embassy. by monday march 14th we dispatched the total of 11 staff to japan. we subsequently rotated and additional staff to continue our on the ground activities. the areas of focus for the nrc team in japan are to assist the japanese government with technical support as part of the

u.s. aid response to support the u.s. ambassador. while our focus now is on helping japan in any way we can be experience will also help us to assess the implications for u.s. citizens and the full fleet as a timely manner best possible. let me also just note here that in concluding this section of the remarks the u.s. government has an extensive network of radiation monitors across the country. we feel confident based on current data for the monitoring of nuclear power plants and for the environmental protection agency's systems that there is no reason for concern in the u.s. regarding radioactive release from japan. i will now turn to the factors that assure us of on growing domestic reactor safety. we have since the beginning of the regulatory program in the united states used a philosophy of defense which recognizes nuclear reactors require the highest standards of design,

construction, oversight and operation and safety doesn't rely on any single level in order to protect the public health and safety. there are multiple physical barriers, products release at every reactor design and beyond that they are both fighters and redundant systems that are required to be maintained in an operable condition and they are frequently tested to ensure the plant is in the high condition of readiness to respond to any scenario. beyond this we've taken advantage of lessons learned from previous operating experience as to implement a program of continuous improvement. we've learned from the experiences across a wide range of situations in putting the three mile island accident of 1979. as a result of the lessons learned, we significantly revised emergency planning requirements, and emergency operating procedures. we have addressed many human

factors issues regarding how the control employees operate the plant and we've added new requirements for hydrogen rick control to prevent explosions in side of the content and we've also created requirements for enhanced control displays showing the status of the pumps and valves. we have a post accident sampling system that enables the monitoring of radioactive material released and possible fuel degradation. and one of the most significant changes we made after three am i zero island was the expansion of the resident inspector program which has at least two full-time nrc employees on each and every site with unfettered access to all licensee activities 24 hours a day, seven days a week. as a result of the operating experience and ongoing research programs, we've developed the requirements for a severe accident management guidelines. our program of continuous improvement will now include evaluation of the significant

events in japan. we've already begun enhancing the inspection activities to temporary instructions to our inspection staff to look at the licensees' readiness to deal with the design accidents and beyond the design pieces accidents. we've issued an information notice to the licensees to make them aware of events in japan and advising them and to mitigate the conditions that result from a severe accidents. over the past 20 years there have been a number of new rulemakings that have enhanced the domestic fleet preparedness against some of the problems we're seeing in japan. for a sample the station blackout rule requires every plant in the country to have analyzed with the plant responds would be if it were to lose the alternating current so that it could respond using batteries for a period of time and then have procedures in place to restore alternating currents of the site. the hydrogen rule requires

modifications to reduce the impact of hydrogen generated far beyond the design basis events. regarding the type of containment design used by the heavily damaged plants in japan we've had a boiling water reactor containment improvement program since the late 1980's. this is required the installation of hardened systems for containment pressure release as well as enhanced reliability of the automatic pressure system. beyond the initial steps to address the experience from japan, the chairman of the nrc with the full support of the commission has directed the staff to establish a senior level agency task force to conduct the methodical and a systematic review of our process these and regulations to determine whether the agency should meet in preference to the bigotry system and make recommendations to the commission for its policy direction. this will have both near term

and longer-term objectives. we are beginning to 90 review. this review will evaluate all of the currently available information from the japanese event to identify the media or near term operational or regulatory issues potentially affecting the 104 operating reactors including the spent fuel pools. areas of investigation will include the ability to protect against natural disasters, response to the station blackouts, severe accidents, spent fuel accident progressions, reading a logical consequence analysis and severe accident management. over this 90 period, we will develop recommendations as appropriate for changes to the inspection program, licensing guidance and recommend whether the genetic communications orders or other regulatory requirements are needed. the task force review will begin as soon as the nrc has

sufficient information from the events in japan. the task force will evaluate all the technical and policy changes related to the event to identify potential research, generic issues, changes to the reactor oversight program, rulemaking or adjustments to never give a brief remark. the report with the appropriate recommendations will be provided to the commission within six months of the start of this evaluation. both the 90 day report and the final rule report will be made publicly available in accordance with the normal procedures. in conclusion i want to reiterate we continue to meet our domestic responsibilities for licensing and oversight of the u.s. fleet our top priority and that the u.s. plants continue to operate safely. at the same time we are undertaking a thorough look at the defense in japan and their lessons for us. based on these efforts will take all of the appropriate actions necessary to ensure the

continuing safety of the u.s. nuclear power plant. thank you. >> thanks to both of you for that testimony. let me start with questions and we will have a five minute round of questions. all of the fukushima plant, let me ask if there's been reports about high levels of radioactive water, radioactivity in the water that is found in the turban building basements. do we know what the source of the radioactive water is and do we know the extent of the problem that that could create going forward either of you? >> yes. we have very limited information on this as with many other aspects, but we believe that the water is the result of the ball

lead and feed process that the of been using to keep water in the reactor cores in the containment of the unit. it is leaking out the exact flow path of the leakage that hasn't been determined and it's the result of the water they've been injecting shortly after the onset of the event. >> the dependable long cooling to the systems and the existence of the high background from that leaked water, whatever the source are complicating those efforts. >> let me ask about the thrust to use passive safety features and passive designs get to the point where if hauer fails and

potential for crisis that we have seen occur in japan. to what extent are we trying to ensure that those passive type designs and systems and safety features be put in place in our nuclear power plants? >> there are two principal reactor designs that are called passive reactor designs and the reason they are called passive because as you mentioned they don't rely on alternating current to respond to an event of this magnitude. there is no pumps that need to start and run off of alternating current any valves that need to change positions change because of stored arithmetics system of of the battery power supply.

once they're running the rely on the natural process he's like gravity in order to create a water flow to keep the core cold. the designs undergone extensive review are receiving approval, in fact there are these lines being planned for construction in the united states that utilize this design concept. >> i'm right in thinking that none of the 104 currently operating plants have these design features in them at the current time, is that right? >> that's correct. >> is, dr. lyons. >> just a comment the small modular reactors are of great interest looking into the future in our program. each of the light-water modular systems have been proposed is a highly passive system and that is one of the aspects that we

looked words and trying the potential for the future of the small modular systems. >> mr. borchardt let me ask you a licensing i'm guessing there are quite a few nuclear power plants in this country that are scheduled for three licensing or at least are going to be applying for the licensing sometime in the next few years. to read to what extent do you think this development in japan will lynn pact on the actions of the nuclear regulatory commission on those licensing applications is there any way to judge that at this point? is that over half the 104 operating reactors in the united states have received license

renewal for an additional 20 years of operation. we expect that the other half will continue with either an end process license renewal or they will apply for the license renewal in the future. it is our intent through the lessons learned program and our continuous operational oversight of the operating fleet that if there was a design change necessary in order to adapt the plants to what we are learning from japan that we would take that action ever said or outside of the license renewal process we would take that without hesitation so there is no technical reason i am aware of that this would impact the license renewal process for the remaining plants in the u.s.. >> thank you. senator murkowski.

>> mr. borchardt, you mentioned the task force and the 90 day review that you will be undertaking here. so much of what we need to learn of course we are not able to know at this point in time because we cannot safely go into the facility. do we have any idea how long we are looking at to get the units cooled down so that in fact we can enter the area, examined the reactors, cut the fuel? what do you anticipate? >> i can't even hazard a guess on how long that will be but the reason we are approaching with a 90 day lessons learned immediately is because we didn't want to wait for whenever that was. we think there's things we can evaluate and should evaluate immediately and that's why we are beginning their review. >> dr. lyons? >> senator murkowski as a

possible addition to that, the department has provided information to the government of japan on the capabilities available in the country. a shipment is being ready and i don't know if it has left yet but there will be mediation robotics available soon. i can't say exactly when which could provide some of the information that you're asking about. certainly not all we need some. >> to understand correctly that japan didn't have any of the robotics we are making available to them at this time? >> i can't speak to whether such capabilities are available in japan. i can only speak to the government of japan has been very interested in understanding the capabilities that can be brought to bear from this country, and we have provided that information. they have identified the needs and we are moving expeditiously to ship of only the robots but

also operators who perhaps will be used to train japanese operators. we don't know yet how close -- it wouldn't be necessary for them to be to the site. >> let me ask a question about the decision making process at the nrc to evacuate u.s. residents when the decision was made for the evacuation with the 50-mile radius within the reactor itself. of course initially the determination from the japanese is that was 12 and a half miles and then they bumped up to 19 miles. can you tell me how the decision was reached, was it a vote of all the commissioners? how did you conclude 50 models was the appropriate evacuation range? >> the factors taken into consideration include all the

indications that we had a strong belief that there was likely fuel damage in the reactors. there was the degree of water level conditions and at least two of the spent fuel pools at the time and there were elevated radiation releases from the plants. given the uncertainty, given those realities and then the uncertainty of the progression at that time we ran some models to see what kind of releases would be possible under those scenarios and made the conservative decision that it also the conditions did not exist at that instance to require an evaluation, we thought that was a conservative and proven prudent recommendation to make. >> you mentioned the radiation

monitoring units that we have in place. alaska received three that we understand our up by, i hope all three are up now. there's a lot of concern about what may end up in our oceans impact to the fisheries. do we have radiation monitors off of honshu, are the measuring anything in the ocean or is it just monitors that are evaluating the air? >> the department of energy system as i mentioned, the airborne system that is monitoring the ground contamination but not out of the ocean the epa has made the monitors that you mentioned in alaska guam, has added several additional monitors. i am not aware of the monitoring

capability within the ocean but we have that certainly could be if it was deemed necessary. i should add that the department of energy through the calculation of capabilities of the for more using the systems developed by the regulatory commission as being the worst cases we do not anticipate a significant health effect in any of the united states areas. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> senator udall. >> thank you mr. chairman and to the panelists. i think we began to learn that just because an even is in a probable doesn't mean that it's impossible. in that spirit let me turn to the design of the spent fuel pool. it seems like based on what you told us this morning that is a key part of the ongoing crisis and understand that the same

design is employed at almost a quarter of our plants in the u.s.. it seems like this is a design flaw. i'm surprised we haven't addressed previously but what are we doing now and what can we do to address it in the months and the years ahead? >> even after the event of 9/11 the nrc took the effort to look at risks to the plant regardless of the cause and one of the issues we looked at is optimizing the way that you can fill the spent fuel pool and keep water injected to keep the core cool so there are a number of procedures and pieces of equipment that can be put in place to keep the spent fuel pool filled so that has been greatly enhanced as well as

having backup systems and power supplies to the same thing. >> dr. lyons? you have thoughts both from the point of view of the department of energy but i would certainly welcome your personal opinions on ways we can make spent fuel storage systems seaford moving forward. >> senator udall, as we conducted many of those evaluations extremely careful, evaluations of the safety of the existing spent fuel pools using the best information available at the time both the storage systems were deemed to be safe. i look forward to the review that will be conducted by the nrc. as bill said the pool will certainly be part of the review and whether that will lead to any suggestions for changes by

would await the review. i do not have concerns today based on the nrc studies to date >> i know you have an official point of view what do you have any other thoughts about how we might make the spent fuel saver in the future just thinking creatively, thinking as the engineer that i know you are? >> senator udall i think my comments should say that we should await the review of the nrc. we include within the program research on the longevity of the gas storage that may prove to be relevant in these discussions, but the would-be the main area i can think of offhand the would be applicable to the question. >> i believe there is a line where the rods are stored in the basement or a lower level.

>> i will be the case. >> i was going to see talk about the engineering challenges to do so. we have to believe that it's easiest to bring the fuel rod out of the reactor the top and you move them at the same level and the spent fuel rods. in the air gravity works against us in that kind of a saturation. >> i believe all the pressure water in the country lies ground floor near ground level storage of the spent fuel pools and knowing of your interest in the small modular reactors with the underground citing and the intent is the spent fuel pools would be cited well under ground and those designs. >> i appreciate you mentioning that new technology, the new engineering approach. >> i would just mention that it's really the difference between the baliles and water reactors that are above grade

and the pressurized water reactors that are near ground level is really just one of the original design philosophy during the early development of those designs probably in the 1950's and 60's. so there isn't really a technical barrier that would prevent changing that configuration for the new design. >> thank you, gentlemen. my time is about to expire but again, this is a very timely topic and i look forward to working with you as we move forward to understand what happened. i think we are all frustrated with the various kinds of information that is often contradictory coming out of japan and for the record i would ask you both to comment on how we can do a better job of given the situation developing in our own country. i think that's added to the sense that this is out of control and the improbable has become naturally the possible so thank you for being here today.

>> thank you. >> senator corker. -- before mr. chairman and for having this briefing and the two of you for being here and obviously for working together to try to deal with this issue in the best way we can. senator udall actually went down a line of questioning that is similar to mine. on the quarter of the reactors we have the are boiling water reactors here in our country, is it your sense that over the course of time we have done things to eat alleviate the same type of risk in our own country? >> yes, sir. as i mentioned, we've done a number of improvements to the design. some were not specific to the boiling water reactors would include both pressurized and a boiling water reactors like the station blackout rule, which looks at the loss of alternating current complete loss at the site there is things that are specific to the boiling water reactors which is the way to

relieve pressure from inside of the containment that is the design improvement. if we have required inside the containment to prevent the possibility of an explosion by having the content with nitrogen. again, generically for all of the reactor designs we've looked at sevier accident mitigation guidelines. these are programs and procedures, pieces of equipment that exist in the plant that say even with all the careful design and design what if the unthinkable still happens we should still have systems in place to about that and so we have done those at all of the plants in the country. estimate your sense is that you've seen a thing that's occurred in japan this for that you haven't already tried to engineer and change the existing

facilities of that nature? >> i would say that's true but that's why we're doing this extensive in the short and longer term review so that we can do a thorough analysis to make sure we are not missing something. >> senator udall, i asked about the storage situation and we've had a debate in this country that is stalled out at president we've looked at the national repository. we of the spent fuel rods on the site as we do in this country and we never can enter every net about what we might do with them over the long haul for the any editorial comments you might make up the regional or national depositories? >> senator corker the main, and i think is the secretary created the blue ribbon commission to look at the cycle and to include the depository issues. that commission which certainly

includes a number of technical and other leaders from around the country is close to the interim report and anticipating in july. personally i am a very hopeful that the report will provide support as suggestions and perhaps five lines as the nation moves forward with this challenge. >> you don't want to state what to the guidelines are? it will be interesting to see and certainly at some point i would love to hear comments about catastrophe of this nature happening and how that might affect -- might have affected things if we had a different type -- if the had had a different type of storage mechanism. the use a small modular reactor. they utilize more of a natural cooling process. i too am interested in the technology and i hoping we are getting ready to move ahead. these are reactors where u.s.

engineering can be more briefly deployed and certainly have lesser capital up front. that more natural cooling process that occurs, is their anything about this recent disaster that makes you feel there's going to be any more useful to us or safe or less safe? have we learned anything from the japanese incident regarding them? >> welcome senator corker i don't know specific from the japanese incident, but in general as we discussed earlier, the small modular reactors that we are interested in what have highly passive systems the would rely as noted on the natural forces, gravity, convention. it wouldn't require pumps, and at least one obvious concern in japan has been the loss of power and the pumping capability that wouldn't be initio for a highly passive system such as for the

smr. >> what you are seeing is some of the failures that occurred recently in japan likely would not occur with these smus? ..

un2006 they recommended rods should be arranged to place old cool fuel rods next to newer, hotter rods, >> in an editorial on match 24th. i was wrote that despite these recommendations, quote, no such action has been taken in the united states or japan.

mr. borchardt, does the nrc have plans to review these and possibly implement them? >> senator, i believe -- you can ask, perhaps, the next panel, but i believe it's a common practice to do such a thing at the plants in the united states, that there is a movement of fuel in order to optimize the soldier condition -- storage conditions in the spent rods. >> what was written in the "post." we have a nuclear plant in monticello, minnesota, that is basically the same design as the fukushima reactors. we're not going to probably have an earthquake in minnesota, and probably -- if we have a tsunam

there probably got bigger problems. but we do have floods, and is there any chance that the backup generators could be overwhelmed by unforeseen levels of flooding. >> monticello and every other plant has extensive review before original licensing that looks at that specific site and looks at the historical record for flooding, hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes, and does a review using the historical record to make sure the plant can respond to all of the kinds of natural events that happen. >> do they do those kind of reviews in japan? >> i can't really speak to that.

i know they do some part of the design basis they consider some of those factors, but the specifics of how japan did their licensing site reviews, i don't know. >> wouldn't that be a good thing to know? >> certainly. yes, sir. >> okay. i would suggest hopping right on that. in terms of the cost of nuclear power, has the events in fukushima changed any sense of what the costs of nuclear power is vis-a-vis other sources of energy? >> that remains for the results of the nrc evaluation to the extent they identify changes, that might change the cost

equation. i couldn't speculate for now. >> okay, fine. let's say that -- we have a few reactors -- what happened here was we had a very large earthquake and then a tsunami. are there any reactors in the united states, say in california, that are built near faults and oceans? or just one ocean? [laughter] >> well, of course, there are -- as i mentioned in my previous answer, we look at the earthquake history for the plants in california, for example, and do an evaluation of the distance and the conditions that would be felt on the site. so, you have to consider what kind of soil and formations exist between the faultline and

the plant, and you -- that disstills down to how much motion you'll see at the plant. the systems have to be designed to withstand that motion plus a little bit more. there's always margins built into the reviews. the same is done looking at flooding, tsunamis, and other natural events. so that's part of the design basis. and every plant, therefore, has its own design basis and will have its own requirements based possible its specific geographic location. >> i see. again, your testimony is, you're not aware of whether or not they did that same kind of analysis in japan. >> that's right. i can't speak to the japanese design criteria. >> okay. because my feeling is they didn't expect this. thank you. >> senator boroso. >> thank you for being here today. there are going to be ongoing

less johns that's going to continue the situation on the ground. still is evolving. our focus, helping the japanese people get through the dollars, and good to see secretary chu indicating we're not in danger, and he indicated the administration supports building additional nuclear power plants. senator corker talk about needs to finalize a long-term solution for soldier of nuclear waste, and the administration has stopped the long-term nuclear storage facility and created a blue-ribbon commission to study, and we would possibly have a report in july. fundamentally, is it safer to store nuclear waste in temporary storage facilities or a permanent site? >> the way i would respond is the nrc would evaluate.

both can be made safe and their requirements would assure that safety. >> mr. -- >> agree we dr. lyons. >> do you that that commission would have the opportunity to learn the lessons from japan and apply those, 0 will we have a report they're working on and ready to put out from preparation prior to the current disaster that we're studding -- studying. >> that should be left up to them. the report in july is there so-called interim report. it's due july 29th. the plan after that interim was to allow six months for public comment, further refinement, and the final report in january of next year.

in response to your question, i think there's very adequate time for the brc to take whatever lessons may be necessary from japan and incorporate it in the final, if not the interim. >> the more recent news, reuters reported that plutonium has been found in the soil. reactor number 3 is the only one to use plutonium in the fuel mix, may indicate a breach in the containment mechanism. can you speak to that? >> the reports i saw were reporting trace levels of plutonium. the report i saw was that it was still debatable what those levels were derived from. all operating reactors, whether they start with any plutonium in the fuel or not, build up plutonium in the course of operation. so finding plutonium that was

derived from either the operating reactors or spent fuel pools would not be a surprise. it would be a concern if it were in significant levels. anything i have seen, it's not significant at this point. >> "the new york times" reported that highly contaminated water could leak into the ocean. what are the implications of that? >> well, certainly that has to be monitored from the standpoint of fisheries, food products. there are other agencies in our government that would be tracking whether there were any concerns from a u.s. perspective on that, and certainly the japanese have adequate resources to be verifying that from their own standpoint. i think it's fair -- certainly from the department of energy's standpoint, and i guess from the

nrc's standpoint, our effort is on controlling the accident, stabilizing the accident, and moving towards a situation where we can see a long-term path towards eventual resolution, whatever that may be. so our focus has not been on that particular issue, but it may well be for other agencies and the japanese government. >> thank you, mr. charity. >> mr. chairman, thank you. and thanks for the testimony. help me out here. i'm somewhat new to all this and don't intend to begin to be an expert in any sense of the word, but we see these news reports that keep coming out, and the public reacts in a way that potentially could undermine any kind of con ken -- consensus

building, and the carbon footprint of a nuclear plant is extraordinarily less, virtually nothing, compared to other sources of energy. so, a wrong perception or wrong conclusion in terms of how we should go forward with nuclear energy possibilities for our country and others, could lead to some very significant consequences in a whole number of ways. so, i'm trying to get my head around a little bit about what we see in the paper every day, or see on tv every day. everytime a plume of steam escapes, it's immediately on the networks. the headlines talks about things that have just been mentioned here, plutonium leaking into the

sea water, and then we read about news that has come out about the babies should not be drinking milk in tokyo, vegetables may be contaminated. give me some perspective in terms of levels of radiation, where we need to be concerned as opposed to those where it's something that sis not such a serious nature. dr. lyons stated that the levels of detection in the united states emanating from the japanese coastline, we get 100,000 more radiation -- units of radiation or however it measures -- simply from nature causes, rocks, sun, et cetera, et cetera. so when you look at the paper the average paper says, 100,000

times more? that was recorded in tokyo. is this something that should cause us the kind of concern we're having? i'm trying to put it in better perspective. >> there have been several press releases from the department of energy trying to assist with the general point that you're making, senator. you're indeed right we essentially live in a sea of radiation. we all have natural exposures of the order of 300 miliram a year, and a miliram is a unit, and a flight across the country, you pick up 3piliram from the flight, cosmic waves at altitude.

radiation is everywhere, and we will try to put in perspective the radiation levels measured. i don't mean to suggest there are not harmful levels. the epa and others have defined so-called protection action guidelines, and we pay careful attention to those guidelines to make sure levels are far below. level thursday the united states are many, many order of magnitude below the guideline. in areas in japan, they're going to have to be much more careful with attention to at least their version of protective action guidelines. >> senator, if i could just add, the epa monitoring sites and reactors are continuing to take samples and readings, and we haven't seen any readings of any concern whatsoever to public health and safety. >> if i could put -- to quantify that slightly more, we have the area monitoring system, which is

taking countless measurements around the site to give you one figure, within two and a half miles of the site there has been no level detected greater than 30milirem back to that unit per hour, and as the flights have continued, those levels have gone down. they are measuring levels of radiation way before background, and we're trying to share that information. >> i don't that has been understood or shared. so 30 milirems within what circumference? >> the highest level observed two and a half miles from the seat. 30 per hour --

>> 30milirem in perspective to the danger level of that. >> well, the level to which the nrc and the epa recommend the public stay below in a year is 100 milimem. so if it was 30 an hour, three hours is the most you should spent. it's the highest dose observed. >> within two and a half miles. >> but levels on the site are much higher. >> of course. the perspective is these types of levels are flowing across the nation of japan, hanging over tokyo, reaching the west coast and so forth, so put it in perspective. thank you, mr. chairman. >> senator. >> thank you to the panel for your informative and helpful

testimony today. i'll simply re-affirm of what senator coats was asking about. there's general concern about radiation and dosages, and you're far more familiar than i am. general confusion about orders of magnitude and consequence and possible impact on public health. a represent a state with no nuclear facilities in it but near other reactors. is a understand the incident and reading and listening to your testimony, one of the core area office concern has to do with backup power, spent fuel rod pauls pools and backup power, ad there might be a need for more than four or eight-pour backup power scenario. what are you doing to look at

safety training and backup power generation, and in particular battery capacity, to focus on the issue of the spent fuel rod pools, particularly a clear way forward. >> the types of issues you raise are exactly why we're putting together this lessons learned. we're going to look at the station blackout rule that required a review of the coping capability of all the u.s. reactors to deal with the loss of all alternating current, and then to look at what conditions, capabilities exist at all of the 104 reactors to see if we need to strengthen the regulatory requirement. one of the obvious questions, do we need an enhanced battery supply? a battery supply that can last longer? we already have safety-related, well-protected, constantly-tested diesel

generators, that are on site. there is a day tank that provides fuel oil to those diesel generators. that's also protected. so, there is robust capability that exists already. but given what we have learned in japan, it's an obvious question we need to ask yourselves do we need to make it even more robust and stronger. so that's part of the review we'll be doing. >> i'm glad to hear that's part of the review to see there was a prompt move towards a top to bottom review nationally. my closing concern would be to urge you to implement whatever the outcome is of that review. i understand this is an industry that already is subject to stringent regulatory review, to significant safety and backup procedures, but i think this particular incident, in order to address legitimate concerns of the public, we need to focus on the specific failure mechanisms here and making sure,

particularly for the longer term, we have dealt with spent fuel, and exactly how it's being stored and maintained in ways that could lead to on occurrence like this in the united states. >> we have done a thorough evaluation, that storage in either the wet spent fuel pool or dry cask storage, both provide adequate protection and safety. >> are spent fuel pools subject to also in the event of the loss of power, they have lower backup power standards currently. is that accurate? >> they require over the long term to have a circulating pump, if you will, that provides cooling to the pool. but it would be many days -- as long as there's no damage the spent fuel pool and no leakage of water out, it would take many days for it to heat up to the point it would boil off and lose water level.

what the industry has done in coordination with some of the regulatory requirement wes imposed of 9/11 was come up with other backup ways to put water into the pool. using fire hoses and other things that aren't even hard piped to the spent fuel pool. it's really a simple issue. all you need to do is keep water and keep the pool full and you protect the integrity of the fuel. >> thank you both and we look forward to the outcome of the review. >> senator lee. >> thank you, both, for your testimony. dr. lyons, i wanted to start with a question to you. much of your career has been devoted to nuclear safety issues, and i suspect you would gray that the people in japan are doing everything they can, doing the best job they can to deal with the situation, but i was wondering, as you look at it, if you had been in charge of this from the outset, knowing

what you know now, anything different you might have done than was done in japan to deal with this disaster? well, senator lee, as part of the standard procedures that the nrc would go to to say nothing of the special review there would be a very careful lessons learned study of any event, whether it's three mile island, 9/11, the events recently, always lessons learned and careful study of that transpired. that needs to be done in this case as well, and we don't have enough detail to do that. as that detail becomes available, it will be very important, as i think you're suggesting, to understand in detail the steps that were taken and to understand whether an alternative sequence of steps, different timing of steps, could have been more effective.

for now that's a little premature, and we're very much focused on restoring the cooling. so we need to -- they need to restore that cooling. >> okay. are you fairly confident that once we have reviewed all of that and be able to conduct a postmortem of what happened, you will be in a position to evaluate whether the exact same set of environmentat -- environmental conditions that occurred there, if they occurred in the united states, whether we would be able to withstand that here. >> generally, yes, but just slightly differently, because as bill indicated, for each of our plants there, is an assessment of what can happen from a natural disaster perspective, and depending on the location of

the plant, one will evaluate different natural phenomenon non. there has to be another check whether there has been a sufficiently robust estimate of what those maximum cases could be. >> then i have a couple questions for either/or both of you, just dealing with spent fuel, following up on what some of my colleagues asked. can you tell me, what's the biggest single impediment to our using spent fuel reprocessing in the united states as a response to -- as one approach to take with spent fuel rods? >> well, senator, reprocessing is certainly one of the issues and information we'll be studying and will be part of the recommendations. it's not particularly obvious to me how reprocessing or not would have dramatically changed, at

least what we have seen to date, but, again, from the u.s. perspective, we need to await the blue ribbon commission, and within my office we have a range of research programs looking at potential options or pollutions to the back end of the fuel cycle. that research, guided by the brc, i hope will allow us to suggest options that congress may want to consider for the future, for used fuel management. >> in the meantime, you consider indefinite on site storage a sustainable practice between now and whenever we get that figured out? >> i was at the nrc when they did a number of evaluations of the safety and integrity of spent fuel casks, and i have to admit i had never seen a spent fuel cask until i was at the nrc and saw them.

these are rather impressive structures, and, yes, i have great confidence in the safety of dry cask storage. i mentioned what we do have research programs within my office, does the nrc, trying to understand how long a duration one should consider for the use of dry casks. i don't think we know what that upper bound is and we need research to establish that but these are very impressive structures. >> thank you very much. >> senator murkowski, did you have other questions of the panel? >> i think in the interests of time, mr. chairman, we should go to the second panel. >> we thank you for your excellent testimony, and we'll go ahead and dismiss you and allow the second panel to come forward. our second panel is mr. david lochbaum, the director of the nuclear power project with the union of concerned scientists, and also mr. anthony

pietrangelo -- i think i have that correct -- senior vice president and chief nuclear officer with the nuclear energy institute. mr. pietrangelo did i correctly pronounce your name? thank you. why don't we go ahead, mr. lochbaum, if you would like to proceed with your testimony. and then we'll hear from mr. pietrangelo, and then questions. >> the fukushima dewatch he plat had blackout. the normal power supply energizes all the equipment needed to operate the plant on a daily basis as well as the emergency equipment needed during an accident. when the normal power supply is

lost, backup power is supplied from on site diesel generators that provide electricity to the smaller set of equipment need teed cool react yorkers and maintain integrity. at fukushima the power supply was lost. while the tsunami caused the backup power supply to be lost. this placed the plant in station black you batteries provided sufficient pour for the steam-driven systems to cool the reactor cores on 1, 2, and 3. fuel in the reactor cores and some spent fuel posts have been damaged by overheating. had either normal or bookup power been restored before the batteries were depleted. we would not be here today. there are lessons that can and should be applied. the lesson of vulnerability at u.s. reactors, and i cannot emphasize enough that the lessons from japan apply to all u.s. reactors, not just the

boiling water reactors at fukushima. none are immune to station blackout probable him and must be made less vulnerable. 11 u.s. reactors are designed to cope for station blackout lasting eight hours, as were the reactors in japan. 93 of our reactors are designed to cope for four hours. one lesson from fukushima is the need to provide workers with options for station black you response efforts should proceed along three parallel path. first, rest store racing of the electrical grid. second, recovery of one or more emergency diesel and acquisition of batteries and generators. if either of the first two paths leads to success, the station blackout ends and reenergized

safety systems can cool the pool. if the first two paths lead to failure, success on the third path provides enough time for the first two paths to achieve related success. the timeline associated with the third path should determine whether additional batteries are required at existing facilities. for example, the existing battery life may be sufficient when a reactor is located near a facility where temporary generators are readily available, such as the san onofre nuclear plant in california, which is next door to the u.s. marine base in camp pen pendleton. i remind, fukushima involved vulnerability of spent fuel pools. all u.s. reactor have the spent

pool cool fueled by fewer and less reviable systems than are provided for the react you're complete at all u.s. reactors it's housed in less robust containment than the reactor core. more radiated fuel that's less will protected and less well defended is a an undo hazard. upgrade the guidelines how to address an emergency and how to address an emergency and provide operator training for spent fuel pool problems. currently the u.s. spent fuel strategy is to nearly fill the pools to capacity, and then transfer fuel into dry cask storage. this keeps the spent fuel pools to capacity, maintaining the risk as high as possibly achievable. a better strategy would be to reduce the pools to only the fuel discharged in the last five years.

that generates lower heat loads which gives worker more time to restore cool organize the water inventory in the spent fuel pool, and if irradiated pool did become damaged, the radio active cloud would be smaller. following the accident at the mile island the procedures relied on operators diagnosissing what happened and taking steps to what fix the problem. if they misdiagnosis they could take the wrong steps. today's procedures guide the operators response to an normally high pressure or unusually low water level without regard for what caused the condition. these revamped procedures reflect significant improvements but only apply to reactor core

accidents. it's imperative a comparable emergency procedures be provided for spent fuel pool accidents. thank you. >> mr. pet trank -- pietrangelo, go ahead. >> on behalf of any inr members, our thoughts are with the japanese, our friends and colleagues in the industry, there, and in particular the workers struggling trying to bring the plant to safety. can't pretend what it's like to be hit by a earthquake, followed by a tsunami, followed by aftershocks. so they're doing a heroic job to bring the plant to a safe condition. a lot of questions thus far this morning about, could it happen here? what are the events that could bring to us this similar condition in japan? what i would like to say is --

the billboards went over the provisions that go into the licensing of our plants but nor people at the stations it doesn't matter what gets you in the can be, whether it's earthquake, tsunami, flood, hurricane, tornado, equipment failure, operator error, manufacturing defect, all those areas are exhaustively reviewed by the nrc before you can get a license, and if you got some rare combination of those that puts you in a station blackout or any other concern where you can't get cooling to the core, that's why we prepare the way we do at our plants. we are ready for those measures. i want to start with the pro-active steps we have taken. basically looking at severe accidents and what goes into what we prepare for in terms of beyond design base basis events. when the nrc licensed the plants you had to be able to place the plant in a safe condition after

an earthquake, loss of power, et cetera. since that time, we have goneon the design basis. we have used risk assessments to look at combinations of initiating events and equipment failure and human actions that could damage the core and what we could do to summoned to those. so we have identified vulnerabilities in the designs we have addressed. we have identified accident management insights for the operators, and agree with -- we have some measures in place but not for -- not to the extent we have for reactors. the president got it right on march 17th. it's incumbent on the industry and the international atomic agency and operators all over

the world to fully understand the lessons that come out of fukushima apply them. i want to talk more about the improvement wes have put in place since the plants were licensed. after september 11, 2001, we did a lot of work on fires and explosions related to aircraft impact. wiping out quadrantses of the plant and see what contingency measures could be put in place. this even goeson station blackout measures that david talked about. the ability to get water in the steam generalators or primary containment, to look at backup cooling measures, and we put a lot of those measures in place, and those measures include contingency measures for spent fuel pools and connection of pools to stand pipes to keep the fuel covered. bill mentioned the analysis of the spent fuel pools. it's not quite as complicated as

the reactors are. basically you have to keep water in the pool. it's a great radiation shield and great coolant. you can go to any spent fuel pool in the country and look over the handrail without any protective clothing on whatsoever, and bill mentioned that depending on the age of the fuel and how long it's been in there, it will take days, more likely weeks, before you would boil off the inventory. typically there's 20 to 30 feet of water before the top of the used fuel rods. so that's a long, long time to be able to deal with the event if it occurs. one thing i can say going forward is that our industry -- our hallmark is learning from experience. we learn from tmi in terms of operator training and design enhancements, and we will enhance safety because a result of fukushima. we started that already. at it going to take a long time

to get a full understanding of what transpired there but when we do, i can assure you we will enhance safety margins across the industry. thank you. >> thank you, both, for your testimony. let me ask first m-lochbaum, what are your thoughts -- we had testimony in the first panel about the station blackout rule that the nrc has put in place, that presumably would build in some safety precautions against the kind of loss of power that we have experienced -- or at least the consequences from loss of power that we have seen in the case of the japanese plant. could you give us your views as to the adequacy of that station blackout rule and what it should

do or other things it should have done that didn't accomplish? >> i think the station blackout rule what to the industry's credit. it did improve safety. i think what japan showed us is that when the event lasts longer than our assumptions, either four or eight hours, we shouldn't leave the operators with no choices. when the station blackout in japan lasted longer than their assumed duration of eight hours, they were left with no options, and the reactor cores and spend fuel pools were overheated and dammed. we need to do a better job of increasing the reliable that either we restore ac power from the grid or restore ac power from diesel generators before the eight hours, and also provide the operators with something else should those very dedicated intense efforts fail, so they're not left without any options other than a miracle. miracles are great but you can't rely on them. we need to look at them to

increase the odds that things are corrected before the station blackout duration ends. and be prepared sure the duration end without success on the restoration of power. i think japan showed the price of not doing that it's chief insurance for the united states to do that. >> mr. pietrangelo, any thoughts? >> looking at the event in japan, with the earthquake and then the tsunami destroying the infrastructure around the plant, what it was, a massive failure of all the backup emergency diesel generators. it's hard to possess stew see that here. we're already looking at trying to stage equipment regionally.

we have done it locally in response to 9/11, and to get to the 72 hours, we're going to take a hard look at that and see what resources are necessary to extend the capability that long. again, it's pretty remote that you would get that kind of common mode failure cross -- across all your systems and the blackout is predicated on giving sufficient time to restore ac power or get an emergency diesel generator started. >> mr. pietrangelo, let me did -- ask your comment on another statement that m-lochbaum says. better to reduce the spent rods in the pools to the minimum amount, those from the past five years, and reducing the spent fuel stored in the pools would lower the risk in a couple of

ways. have you looked at that recommendation and do you have a thought about it? >> yeah. first of all, it's not a new recommendation. it's been out there for quite some time. i think as a result of fukushima, we need to take hard look how we mapping used fuel in our country, and while it's not a crisis situation, get some momentum behind a national policy to deal with used fuel. the issue is with the spent fuel pools -- i think a lot of analysises done of what happens to spent fuel. we don't know exactly what happened in those used fuel pools and part of the lessons learned will be specifically focused on the uncovering, and while there is some risk reduction in unloading the pools after five or six years, the old fuel is where the most heat load

and is radio toxicity is. so you would still have risk so the problem doesn't going away and it's a marginal reduction in risk when you do that. >> all right. senator mccloskey. >> just to follow up on that, then. so, the decay radiation in this spent fuel that we're moving and saying, okay, after five years we're going to move this, you're still going to have a level of radiation there. other -- do we know what kind of decayed radiation we have? and then understanding that, do we have to design some type of a new dry cask to contain that radiation? what do we do with it? either one of you. >> the reason we said five years

is that the casks being used today are designed for fuel that been out of the reactor for five years or mow. so so we don't have to go to new casks. we just want to accelerate transfer from pools to casks. >> we don't have to do that much in terms of new technology. just move it quicker. >> that's correct. >> let me ask a question about the use of the sea water to act as a coolant. i understand that we are now in the process -- the united states has been in the process of helping ship in some fresh water, but in the meantime, the seawater has been used. there's summon question about the corrosive nature of the salt, and i don't know -- maybe this is a question that was best asked of either of the two gentlemen before you, but can either one of you speak to this

as an issue, whether or not the salt in the seawater is perhaps having an impact on our ability or on the japanese ability to get the reactors under control? >> i think the concern was that you boil off the seawater, you're lift -- left with salt that could preclude cooling. so as soon as they had fresh water available they started injection into the vessels with fresh water, and the barges from the u.s. navy have arrived. so they have a half million gallons of fresh water available. >> given that we have already used some pretty substantial amounts of seawater, do we know whether or not that has proven to be an impediment or caused delay or complications in getting this under control? >> i don't know, senator. >> i think just the opposite. they were facing very dire

situations so the seawater helped stop whatever dam -- whatever damage was ongoing, now they're diluting the seawater with freshwater so looks like they took the right steps for the right reasons. >> senator in our plants in this country, there are provisions when you lose your available inventory of fresh water, provisions to use river water or seawater in existing systems. so it's not the situation you want to get to butylates if you need it. >> does the salt have any impact on the spent fuel pools? >> i think it's the same concern. it would be in the reactor. it could impede cooling. >> the concern about niacor rose sive effect? >> there are stainless steel liners. i think the problems for the

pools would be the instrumentation and the other controls of the water flow. we heard in the last couple days they restored flesh water supplies supplies to the pools so they will be diluting the salinity in the pools. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> senator franken. >> yeah. i have a couple areas i want to get into. i'm getting some idea about how we approach assessing all the safety factors, the nuclear plant when we site it. mr. pietrangelo, you spoke in some quick detail about that. when i asked mr. borchardt or the nuclear regulatory commission, how the japanese system compared to ours, he said he didn't know.

now, i think that if we are in -- if americans are going to get some kind of -- take some kind of comfort that our system, and everything you described actually works, it would be nice to know how our system compare to the japanese system. what we're seeing in japan is it didn't work. so, mr. lochbaum, i find this disturbing, that this far into this crisis, that the nuclear regulatory commission doesn't know how to compare the japanese system of sitic and looking into

safety verse us. >> the nrc has 4,000 people. they have an international unit that knows the answer but he department know the combined knowledge of those 4,000 people. i would be willing to bet this week's paycheck they'll soon have that information. so the situation is not quite as bad as it appears on the surface. by the way, it's not my paycheck, it's somebody else's paycheck. >> senator, going forward, we have to understand not only the differences in the regulatory systems but from an industry, perspective what design mods were made to the plants, what rational practices they put into place, emergency plans for events like this, and compare it to what we 1/2 place, and then assess the gaps to see whether we would have been better to able deal with it or we need to do additional things. >> you know, it's hard to take a

lot of comfort from what we do compared to what they do because obviously what they did isn't sufficient. right? now, i quoted a "washington post-" editorial. did you read that? >> i did. >> did you read that, mr. lochbaum? >> i did. >> in it he wrote that despite the recommendses by the national academies, that spent fuel rods be stored in pools on site, that they should be arranged -- place old cool fuel rods next to newer, hotter fuel rods, to prevent hot spots and fires in the event the pools lost enough water to cover the rods. that despite that recommendation in 2006, there's no such

action -- this is a quote -- no such action has been taken either in the u.s. or japan. mr. borchardt said they had them. so, now, i have two questions. one, dr. bun is an expert at hard involved -- harvard. is he wrong? >> mr. b.p. is wrong. there was a correction two or three days later, saying there have been measures taken to address some of the concerns he raised in his op-ed, we referred to it as a checkerboard pattern of fuel. precisely what he was talking about, and second as part of the

post-9/11 event. >> well, that answer that. one last thing. i have 20 second left but i can ask the question and you can take whatever time you want to answer it. evacuation. we kind of are seeing kind of a lot of controversy about how much area around the reactor in fukushima is a safe area, and we see that if you take a 50-mile radius from some of our reactors, you have tens and tens of millions of people around them. do we have adequate evacuation plans in case something like this would happen in the united states? >> our evacuation plans are

based on studies in the 1970's by the nrc and other agencies. the ten-mile zone was determined to be sufficient to protect public health and safety. there's also a 50-mile zone that looks at the ingestion path. any contamination of food products or dairy products and there's provisions to increase the evacuation or protective action recommendations, be it evacuation or sheltering -- beyond the ten miles. every two years each plant conducts an exercise overseen by the nuclear regulatory commission and fema. and in addition we practice those drilled quarterly on site. so, we think we have the gold standard of planning. it was difficult situation for the nrc two weeks ago when we were in the middle of this event

and we're looking at three cores and four spent fuel pools and limited and conflicting information. i think they too what they always do, when there's a lot of uncertainty on the ground, they make a very conserve decision. i think we have severe that over the years with how the agency regulates, and that's what happened here. >> mr. lochbaum, do you have any opinion about the state of our evacuation plans? >> i think our plans are as good as those in japan on march 10th. >> i meant to what that means. >> it means we would be equally in dire straits if we faced that kind of disaster. we have agreed plans on paper. if we put them in practice, we will come up short. >> i would add, the japanese responded exactly as we would with our emergency man. -- emergency plan. they evac witnessed within 12-1/2 miles, put sheltering in place late, so they did

precisely actions we would take to protect public health and safety. in our country, it's the state and local officials acting on recommendations from the plant operator and overseen by the nrc who makes that decision. >> but this fukushima is not as dense an area, certainly as many of the -- indian point was brought up as an example. there are millions and millions of people living within 50 miles of that plant. let's say you're a parent. your kid's at school. going the opposite way of exiting -- getting away from there. mr. lochbaum, do you think that we need to improve on what we're doing? >> on indian point, the local and state officials said they can't get their people out if need to the federal government overruled what the local and state government said, and said

it would happen merrick that some miracle would occur and the people would not be harmed. i tend to trust the local state officials. they deal with these issues. if in their best judgment they can't protect those people, i don't know why anybody she's believe we can. >> thank you. i'm way over my time. thank you, gentlemen. >> senator murkowski. >> very quickly. do you think it was confusing, the fact that the evacuation order from the japanese government, that it be 12-1/2 miles initially, and then in the united states coming in and saying 50-mile radius? what does that message say? that americans are more worried about the radiation than the japanese are to those living there? was that a confusing directive? >> we support what the president recommended for american citizen in japan. i think it's a different decision to evacuate u.s.

citizens. there's not going to be as many living within that radius as it is for japanese people who have been raise thread and live there now. i can understand the confusion, but based on the information they had at the time and the potential for it to degrade, i think they made a conservative decision, and -- but i understand where the confusion could come from. >> in the united states, one of the things we learned from three mile island, it's good to have one voice to avoid confusion. what this accident may suggest is we need to look at an international concept of one voice so there's not a discrepancy that one side or the other can say was either too much or too less. so the same reason we went to one voice after three mile island, be a good idea to look at it at an international level. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you both for your

testimony. this has been a useful briefing for us, and we appreciate it. if additional issues come to your attention, please let us know and we'll try to inform the full committee on all of those as well. thank you. >> thank you, senator. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] ...

at least 42 disease clusters have occurred in 13 u.s. states since 1976 according to a report by the natural resources defense council. the disease cluster is a location that shows a statistically high incident of an illness. the senate environment committee today looked into the issue. this 90 minute hearing is chaired by california democrat barbara boxer.

>> the hearing will come to order. i would like to begin by thanking our witnesses for coming here today. you traveled long distances and we are very appreciative of that. in particular, i want to welcome the trevor schaefer, a brave young man who has overcome so much in his life already and i met him when he was much younger. he beat cancer that he got when he was just a child, and he is inspiring a lot of people to make sure that others don't have to go through the same thing. trevor has come out with great purpose and has decided to devote his life to helping children who also face frightening reality of having to deal with cancer. trevor and our other distinguished witnesses are here to testify on a very important issue, the need to better protect our families and communities from dangerous diseases that occur in clusters. i'd like to also recognize the

two other witnesses from my state of california. ms. aaron popovych, who i think no the tecum needs no further introduction. we know of her work. and dr. jeanne solomon boustany tremendous amount of work on cancer clusters. without a doubt our country is made great strides in addressing devastating diseases that once commonplace. our nation invested in drinking water treatment plants and waste water treatment facilities and of these facilities are now essentials parts of our public health infrastructure. despite these great advantages we still have more work to do to address diseases such as cancer and birth defects that took the lives of our children and family members. according to the environmental protection agency, from 1975 to allow seven, rates of childhood cancer increased by more than 20%. i want to say that again.

according to the epa from 75 to 07 rates of childhood cancer have increased by more than 20%. so consider this hearing an alarm bell. the country needs to pay attention to a statistic like this. according to the national cancer institute, leukemia is the most common form of cancer accounted for 20% of the incident. the greatest number of childhood cancer occurs during infancy. the first year of life. our youngest and most vulnerable in our society should not have to shoulder such a devastating burden. when the same disease suddenly impacts an entire family or an entire neighborhood or an entire community, people are rightly concerned a common factor is the cause. scientists don't always know the exact cause of cancer, but we

know that when we look at cancer they usually find its genetics or environmental causes. just last year the president's cancer panel said that it, and i am now quoting it is particularly concerned to find the true burden of environmentally induced cancer has been grossly underestimated. let me repeat that. the true burden of environmentally induced cancer has been grossly underestimated and i would ask unanimous consent to enter into the record the report from the president's panel and without objection i will do that. panel urged the federal government, quote come to remove the carcinogens and other toxins from our food, water, air that needlessly increase health care costs, crippled the nation's productivity and devastate american lives. clearly efforts to address disease such as childhood cancer and birth defects research

focus, coordinated and effective action at every level of government so that we respond in the most effective manner on a cluster ochers. that is why i introduced along with senator crapo es 76 for children in communities from disease clusters act. s 76 is designed to increase coordination, transparency, accountability when federal agencies work to investigate and address potential disease clusters. it's designed to give people in communities a seat at the table to better understand such investigations. and if we've learned anything from the battle about we learned the community was at sea and didn't know where to turn. they have to turn to an attorney and his able assistant to find out the things going on in the community that were making their

own experiences. this bill by itself is not going to end disease clusters. we know that. but some important step helping the communities effectively investigate and address devastating diseases that still impact our families, neighborhoods and society. the critical importance of our bill can be stated in a simple way. if by working together we can establish the cause of the disease cluster we can take steps to end the problem and not waste precious time when so much is at stake, the very health of our families, and that is the simple truth about our bill and now i'm delighted to call on my cosponsor, senator crapo. -- before. i appreciate working with you on this legislation and appreciate you calling this oversight hearing on disease clusters and environmental health. this is an important issue as you have indicated, and i really am glad our committee is looking into it.

i want to thank our witnesses for coming today. on ha erin brockovich and dr. solomon we appreciate you making the time to be here and appreciate the information in the testimony you're going to provide and i want to extend a special welcome to trevor schaefer who is the chairman has indicated is from idaho has an incredible history that helps us address this issue. trevor is the founder of trevor's track foundation and we in idaho are proud he is they're doing this great work. when he was 13-years-old trevor was diagnosed with brain cancer and with the love and support his family, and i want to point out that his mother, charlie smith, is also here today. smus that, charlie, if you would, would you stand for a second? >> charlie, think you for being with us. trevor relocated from mccaul

idaho tbilisi idaho to undergo surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. after surviving and recovering from his grueling ordeal, trevor decided he wanted to help children with cancer, and so in 2007 along with his mother, charlie, he founded trevor's trek foundation. through raising funds to provide mentoring services for the young cancer survivors it is a shining example of how the selfless actions of an individual can make a real difference in the lives of those in need. and as if his work at the foundation isn't enough, trevor is also a volunteer with the make a wish foundation. in idaho and he's helped the comprehensive cancer alliance for idaho to create the childhood cancer strategic plan. he's also a u.s. ambassador for the national disease cluster alliance and has organized the first child cancer awareness walk in idaho. you can see that he's very committed. in all of these things have been

achieved by a young man who just graduated from boise state university in 2008. i'm very happy the you could join us today, trevor, and thank you for coming and we look forward to your testimony. we are very appreciative of the incredibly hard work you have put into these kind of issues. madam chairman, let me say briefly i appreciate the opportunity for this committee to take a closer look at the issue of disease clusters. while we've heard quite a bit about them through books and movies such as erin brockovich and john and hearts of civil action and others, we've not had a recent detailed discussion about them here in congress. but we should. and thanks to the effort of people like trevor and charlie and erin and our other witnesses, we will. today's hearing begins the discussion and i look forward to hearing from our experts about the scientific research behind the causes of the disease clusters. the coordinated response between federal state and local

government and that may be helpful to us. think again madam chairman that concludes my statement. >> thank you. i was remiss the wanted to introduce another californian sitting next to trevor's mom, charlie, and this is the woman who brought this particular issue to my attention and worked with the family and is an advocate for the family and is an author. susan, will you stand up? i'm proud you were here and we are proud of you in california and now is a pleasure to call on senator lautenberg. >> thanks very much. many of us in this room are, appeared in some grand parents and try to protect our children. hats off to you for the work that you've done. you are a living example of what happens when one has courage and determination and thinking for what you've done. no parent should have to be afraid to send their child into the backyard to a neighborhood

because it might make them sick if this is the reality facing parents who live in communities where residents are under assault from diseases such as cancer. for example, in the 1990's a cancer cluster was discovered in toms river where children were being diagnosed with leukemia and brain cancer at an alarmingly high rates. toms river is the home of two from sites and a number of industrial facilities. and investigation of toms river by the state centers for disease control and prevention found in association between mothers who drank contaminated water and children who developed leukemia. as science tells us children on a specially vulnerable when the encounter dangerous substances. studies show as much as 5% of childhood cancer, 10% more

neurobehavioral disorders and 30% of childhood cases are associated with hazardous chemicals. and make no mistake you don't have to live near a superfund site to be exposed to potentially harmful chemicals. they are all around us. testing by the non-profit environmental working group found more than 285 industrial chemicals than newborn babies, and more than 400 in adults. additional testing by the cdc also found hundreds of industrial chemicals and adults including six carcinogenesis. studies show that mothers -- kids whose mothers have high levels of certain chemicals in their blood are more likely to have behavioral and health problems and that's why we've got to create stronger and more effective regulation of chemicals that could harm our children, an issue we ought to

be tackling on several fronts. i will soon introduce an updated version of my state chemicals act which would require that chemical manufacturers prove that their products are safe before those substances and death in our bodies. i received helpful feedback on the bill last year and i will incorporate ideas that further improve the bill. and i'm committed to working with colleagues on both parties to modernize the substances control act in a way that protect public health and works for businesses but the need is to urgent to wait while i would children continue to be exposed to untested chemicals, and i'm going to be working with chairman boxer to mark up the bill. we also must pay close attention to what's happening in communities who are disease clusters present in the basic risk. i'm proud to co-sponsor chairman

boxer's legislation to make it easier for state and federal agencies to work together to investigate disease clusters and educate communities about them. the bottom line is that we've got to do more to protect our children and grandchildren from substances that could damage their health and shorten their lives. so i look forward to hearing from today's witnesses about how we can create a healthier environment for everyone, particularly our children and i think you very much, madam chairman. >> thank you very much, we are going to call on the two senators coming now in a moment. i wanted to ask unanimous consent to please in the record support for the boxer crapo bill from the health network, the breast cancer fund, the sierra club, the center for health and firemen and justice in virginia, the national disease cluster alliance a lot to insure we get

that done and i also want to put in the record the disease clusters in california that were identified by the nrdc and the national disease clusters alliance eight sites where they found these clusters so i will put those in the record and senator johanns, you are up next. >> thank you for the opportunity to revive been called to the floor in about 15, 20 minutes to speak so i'm going to pass. if i have anything i will offer it in written form and again, thanks for the devotee. >> thank you, senator. senator white house? >> i will follow the good senator's example so we can get on to the witnesses, but i wanted in particular to the welcome ms. brockovich. we were together years ago on the children's health impairment coalition which is a wonderful organization and the chairman's home state and delighted to welcome her here to washington

so thank you, madam chair, and i appreciate the way that you and senator crapo have worked together on this. >> thank you. we'll get right to our witnesses and the first witness, trevor schaefer come to the ambassador and founder of trevor's trek foundation, has been such an inspiration to me personally and so many people and inspired me to work with senator crapo on this legislation, so we are honored to have you. trevor, you have five minutes but if you go over a couple of minutes, that's fine. go ahead. >> thank you, chair boxer. i would also like to speak three ranking member james inhofe and migrate senator, mike crapo for taking on the issue of childhood cancer and cancer clusters and what they mean to our public health. i would also like to thank all of the senators on the environment and public works

committee for allowing me to address some of these issues today. and i'm so very proud to be able to state that i am here today as a witness for both the majority and minority kennedy members. most of you do not know me other than i'm associated with s76 also known as trevor's law. my hope is that by the end of my testimony, you will not only know me, but you will remember me as the voice of every child in this great nation. as you've been told, i was diagnosed with brain cancer at the age of 13. until that time i've is thriving in a small town nestled on the banks of a glacial lakes in the beautiful mountains of idaho. i really had a fairy tale life in paradise. but the carefree days of my

childhood changed abruptly and dramatically after my cancer diagnosis. like a snap of a finger, i was robbed of my childhood and my innocence. i was thrown into the antiseptic world of hospitals and eight hour brain surgery followed by 14 grueling months of radiation and chemotherapy treatment. unfortunately i wasn't the only kid in my town with this pernicious disease. in the same year i was diagnosed there were four other cases of brain cancer diagnosed. over a tenure period, there was an abnormally high number of cancer cases diagnosed before and after i became ill. it continually repeats itself

throughout our nation year in and year out. according to the cbc, 36 children per day, to classrooms full, are being diagnosed with cancer and related to genetics or family history. as trevor's law states, cancer is the second leading cause of death among children exceeded only by accident. many of us young cancer survivors will forever face chronic health challenges resulting in the heroic medical measures used to save our lives. children who have had cancer often experienced confusion and embarrassment as they try to return to a so-called normal life and are dealing with the physical side effects related to their cancer and treatment. i can attest to that.

several years ago when cancer struck me, i fought so hard for my life. i fought for the countless number of needle pricks, the blood transfusions, maza, vomiting and physical therapy so i could live to see the sunrise and the snowfall. i'm so grateful to be alive. still, the aftermath from the cancer treatment that i have endured have affected me in many ways. every morning i wake up with a ringing in my year which never stops. i have trouble with my memory and i may never be able to have children of my own. how ironic that i fought so hard to save my own life, yet now i may never be able to give life. and senators, considered one of the success stories.

although there is any significant increase in the cure rate of childhood cancer, children still are getting sick at an increasingly steady rate. in small towns throughout our country, possible cancer clusters exist. parents are trying to get authorities to investigate these clusters and what causes the disease patterns. scientists and health activists say the government's current response to the disease clusters range from piecemeal to the nonexistence. some people were told that the small populations render them statistically and significant. there's nothing in such a diffident even about one child diagnosed with cancer and then buying of that cancer without ever knowing why.

trevor's law seeks to rectify that by allow when people in small communities to have their voices heard and concerns about what they did about the environmental impacts on their children's health. environmental exposure is insidious in all instances yet in effect some were children in greater proportion than adults. children are more vulnerable to chemical toxins than adults because they have fester metabolism and less mature immune systems. according to dr. sandra we are seeing more brain tumors in 4-year-olds, ovarian cancer and adolescent girls and testicular cancer an adolescent boy is. these cancers are rising rapidly, and of course children do not drink, smoke or hold

stressful jobs. we therefore cannot really evoke lifestyle explanations. there are no good familiar as we know of. we are beginning to recognize that not only prenatal life but adolescent life is a time of great vulnerability and cancer causing chemicals. when the connection between health and the environment becomes even more important. toxins migrate read through geographical boundaries and property lines. cancer's there's no ethnic group, no socioeconomic group, nor any geographical area. in its wake we are left with the burden of extreme personal and social costs. i would also like to stress that cancer does not only attack the victim.

it greatly impacts every member of the family. syllabling soft inexperience concern, fear, jealousy, delta, resentment and feelings of abandonment which can last long term. relationships between family members can become tense. there can be stress on the marriage and oftentimes a family breaks up. i felt that if i survive i would dedicate my life to helping other children with cancer who otherwise would never be heard. i truly believe that i have been given a second chance at life to convey to you the urgency and importance of addressing the proliferation of childhood cancer clusters and the methods of reporting them. for the children, i strongly

encourage your support for trevor's law. in closing, i would ask you to consider how much your child or grandchild's life and well-being are worth to you. and while your doing that, please close your eyes for a brief moment and imagine a world without children. thank you. >> thank you. erin brockovich, who is such a fighter for people who did nothing wrong and suffered and trevor, you touched our hearts deeply and i think you. >> chair boxer and distinguished members of this committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. my name is erin speed as an

environmental advocate i respond to requests for help and ground water contamination complaints in all 50 states. on a oregon investigations in california, texas, florida, michigan, new york, new jersey, alabama, louisiana, illinois, mississippi and missouri. i'm also the proud mother of three wonderful children, two of whom are presently serving their country as soldiers in the united states army, one currently deployed in afghanistan. each month on the receive over 40,000 visitors to my web site, thousand of whom report issues ranging from environmental pollution, cancer and disease, worker injuries and illness and more. these people make of whole communities that are witnessing firsthand the harmful effects that exposures to chemicals such as chromium's have had on them.

these communities both large and small and in every corner of the united states are sending out an sos. from small farming towns like cameron, misery, too small desert towns like midland, texas, to the forgotten town in missouri where the lead are so large the children think they are hills and play on them. in passing as the children away if it is startling to see the palms of their hand gray soaked in thank lead dust. unfortunately again in hinckley california this is becoming an all too common occurrence. it would appear most of these communities are under siege by one form of pollution or another. protecting the health of our family and children should be our top priorities for us all. yet the system for investigating, responding and reporting these concerns is

inadequate. this is why i strongly support as 76, the strengthening protection for children and communities from disease cluster act also known as trevor's moly in honor of this brave young man trevor schaefer. trevor's law will assist communities impacted by disease clusters and will identify sources of environmental pollutants and toxic substances suspected of causing developmental, reproductive, neurotoxic and numerous cancers and other adverse health effects. according to the cdc in 2011, one of three people with bill phill of cancer in his or her lifetime. one in three. as an advocate for the past 20 years i have reached an undeniable conclusion. there are simply too many cancers in this country and not enough answers. and that is what these

ministers and diplomats met